


Six Feet Under

by Headfulloffantasies



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Building Collapse, Claustrophobia, F/M, Panic Attacks, Trapped, some blood (not graphic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-19 05:43:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22106017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Headfulloffantasies/pseuds/Headfulloffantasies
Summary: Natasha and Clint are trapped under a collapsed building. Clint comforts a panicking Natasha
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Clintasha
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33





	Six Feet Under

Natasha woke to dust in her eyes. The grit scraped and stung. Tears trailed hot down her cheeks. Through blurry vision, she made out the remains of the building. 

Weak light illuminated collapsed walls, crumbling concrete, and a crushed pipe. She dimly remembered a denotated explosive.

Natasha moved to get up off the grimy floor. Her ankle screamed in protest. She grit her teeth and waited for the pain to pass. A weight finally registered, pinning her from the waist down to the floor. She twisted her neck to look back. A fallen slide of concrete rubble had piled into an avalanche over her lower body. 

Natasha took a breath to yell for help and choked on the dust. 

Over the coughing she heard a scuffle.

“Nat?” 

Thank heaven. “Hawkeye?” Natasha croaked.

Somewhere close to her left Clint shifted, causing a mini earthquake of debris. 

“Nat, are you okay?” 

“I’m stuck,” Natasha admitted. She laid her cheek against the cold floor. “Come get me out.”

“About that…” Clint broke off into a hacking cough. “I’m kinda pinned down too.”

“Are you injured?” Natasha’s pulse spiked. 

“Couple bumps and bruises. You?”

“I’m not going to be doing the ballet anytime soon,” Natasha groused. “I think I’ve broken my ankle.”

Fingers found Natasha’s left hand. She squeezed Clint’s hand. She craned her neck, but a pile of twisted metal blocked her view of Clint. Only his hand and wrist were visible, straining to reach her.

Natasha tried wiggling her hips, hoping to shift some of the rubble. “If I can get free, maybe I can dig you out.”

“Nat,” Clint’s voice went sharp. “Don’t. You’ll make it worse.”

Natasha ignored him. Blocking out the throbbing in her ankle, she bucked up against the rubble. Debris shifted, clattering about. The weight did not ease. 

Panting, Natahsa lay her exhausted head down. 

“Nat!” Clint’s desperate cry roused Natasha from the doze she hadn’t realised she’d drifted into. 

“M’okay,” Natasha mumbled.

“Stay with me,” Clint begged, his hand clenched around her lax fingers. “Please. I can’t do this without you.”

“Yes, being buried alive would be too boring for you by yourself,” Natasha mused.

“I can’t do this job without you,” Clint corrected. “You make Shield bearable, Nat. I’d just be another killer if it wasn’t for you.”

Natasha’s cheeks burned with shame. “You’re not a killer, Clint,” she mumbled. But I am, she thought.

“You hold me back,” Clint’s thumb swiped the back of Natasha’s knuckles. “You remind me I’m human. I’m not a monster.” The silence between them swelled. “You’re not a monster either, Nat.” 

A sob tried to claw up Natasha’s throat. She clamped it down and strangled it into submission. She squeezed Clint’s hand.

Debris suddenly rumbled. A sheet of concrete slid passed Natasha, mere inches from her nose. She scrambled, palms scraping the gritty floor, to get away. A pipe whizzed by. Natasha ducked, covering her head. The rumbling subsided. Natasha lifted her head. The sheet of concrete had settled right in front of her face, blocking her view of anything. Even the dim light had hidden on the other side of the rubble. She’d lost hold of Clint’s hand.

Natasha reached for where Clint’s fingers should have been. Her knuckles scraped a cement barrier.

“Clint,” Natasha’s breathing went ragged.

“I’m here,” he promised. “I’m still here.”

“I’m trapped,” she whispered. 

“It’s going to be alright,” Clint assured her. “Don’t worry, Shield will be here any minute.”

“And if they’re not?” Something in Natasha’s chest tore like a veil. Trapped. She was trapped. This was worse than the closets in the Red Room. Worse than being  
paralysed to test her strength. Here she could move, but she couldn’t escape. There was no pass or fail. This was life or death. Trapped. Suffocating. Crushed. Lost.  
Nothing but darkness. Nothing. Trapped. Stuck. Buried.

Natasha’s head spun. Her breath whistled in her chest. 

“Nat, listen to me,” Clint’s voice was smooth. It was light. 

“Listen to my voice,” he commanded. She was in darkness. But he was light.

“You’re okay. You’re alright. You’re here with me. Let’s breathe together, okay? In and out.”

Clint did an exaggerated exhale. 

“You’re not doing it, I can hear you,” Clint accused. “In and out.”

Natasha tried. Her lungs wheezed, too fast.

“Good. Again,” Clint instructed. “In and out.”

Clint’s voice was getting quieter. Natasha panicked. 

“Hey!” Clint yelled. Natasha snapped to attention. “You are the Black Widow. You survived the Red Room. You survived Moscow. You survived Loki, and Ultron, and Yelena. You are not dying here, do you understand? You are too powerful to die like this.” 

Natasha swallowed hard. 

Clint continued, “Now, you are going to breathe for me, Nat. In and out.”

Natasha focused. In and out. She wasn’t going to pass out. In and out. She wasn’t suffocating. In and out. She wasn’t trapped, not really. Shield would be here any second.

It registered slowly that Clint wasn’t speaking anymore. 

“Clint?” Natasha shifted, trying to see over the concrete barrier. She couldn’t get a view. 

“Clint? Answer me!”

“Almost there,” Clint’s quiet response slurred. 

“Clint!” His silence sent Natasha into another panicked frenzy. She scrabbled at the ground. Her nails dug into the dirt and chipped on the cement. Her ankle shrieked.  
She couldn’t get out. Natasha thrashed. 

“Clint! Clint, you better answer me now or I swear I’ll pull your fingernails out with a rusty pliers.”

A crash stopped Natasha cold. A cloud of dust rose up, clogging her throat. She coughed, burying her face in her arms. Light poured in, obscuring her vision. Natasha raised a hand to block out the searing light. Someone grabbed that hand. She yelped when they pulled. The hand released her.

A dozen voices yelled over top of each other. She couldn’t stop coughing to answer any questions.The crushing weight finally lifted from Natasha’s legs. Someone pulled her to her feet and offered a shoulder to lean on. 

It was all happening so fast that Natasha’s eyes hadn’t even fully adjusted to the light. Every face was a blurry mass she squinted into.

Natasha took a breath of air that hadn’t been cycled through an explosion.

“Where’s Clint?” Was her first coherent question.

The attending agent didn’t answer. He directed her to sit. Natasha blinked, finally able to see clearly. The agent had seated her on the bumper of an ambulance. An EMT rushed around her like a buzzing fly.

“Where’s Clint?” Natasha demanded as a blanket dropped over her shoulders. She shivered and clutched the blanket to her.

“They’re pulling him out now,” the agent pointed. 

Natasha turned to survey the ruin of the building. I was under there, the thought brought new horrors. I survived that.

Out of the rubble rose a stretcher bore by EMTs. A dirty, ragged body lay lifeless on the stretcher. There was so much blood.

Natasha choked on a sob. “Clint!” 

She tried to stand, forgetting her ankle in her panic. She crashed into the EMTs arms. 

The woman clicked her tongue. “Do I need to sedate you?”

“What happened? Is he…?” She couldn’t say it.

“He’s tough,” the agent reported. “A rebar pierced his abdomen. The paramedics say he’s stable.”

Nausea swept through Natasha’s gut. Clint had been bleeding out mere feet away and she’d been losing her mind over stupid claustrophobia. 

“He’ll make it,” she promised. “He has to.”

Because if he doesn’t I’ll kill him myself, she thought darkly.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not happy with this, but here it is


End file.
